Pro tip: I finally stopped using a DA sander for every rust spot after a paint shop in Phoenix showed me the difference

For years I was convinced a DA sander was the only way to handle rust on quarter panels. Then last summer I watched a guy at Bumper King in Phoenix use a needle scaler on a 2013 F-150 before I even touched my sander. The kicker was seeing the final job 2 days later - zero pinholes, no bondo cracks, and the paint laid flat. He just said "stop sanding what you can't see" and now I'm a believer. Has anyone else switched tools for rust repair and noticed a big difference in the final outcome?

2 comments

2 Comments

river1821mo ago

Man that's such a good point. I spent years doing the same thing with a DA sander on every old rust spot and kept wondering why my repairs never lasted more than a year or two. Finally had a guy at a local body shop explain the same thing to me about needle scalers and how they get all the hidden rust out of the crevices. It made such a huge difference on my old Tacoma where I thought I had it clean but there was still rust hiding under the seam. Now I always break out the scaler first and only use the sander for the final smoothing pass. Really changed how I think about rust repair entirely.

fisher.diana1mo ago

Oh absolutely, and @river182 that's where the real acid test comes in after you think you're done.